Cartography

I used to handle the maps.

Whenever we went on vacation

My father would open the map and say

“Okay, son, tell us how to get there.”

And I would point out the ways

I’m sure my father knew

Exactly where to go

But he still let me be his navigator

We kept a road atlas in the car

And I would occupy myself figuring out

How to get from Cincinnati to Charlotte

Chicago to Omaha to Denver to San Francisco

Now nobody uses maps.

The closest thing I have to one

tells me where all the Cracker Barrels in America are.

It’s all GPS and it’s not the same 

Having the world at your fingertips

Does not mean

You know how to handle it all.

Lawrence Miles is a poet living in White Plains, NY.  He has recently been published in Poets Live Fourth Anthology, 2022 New Generation Beats Anthology and Four Feathers Press' Sounds of Southern California: Poetry of Music.